


to pull me from myself again

by rgdivine



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, implied leaisa, lea cameo, xion cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21912412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rgdivine/pseuds/rgdivine
Summary: for izzy.Things have been weird since everyone got back. Saïx—Isa, now—was living with them—they were living together, Roxas and Xion and Axel, and Isa. It was almost like they were back in the Organization, except it felt like the air was a lot more open. No more secrets. No more friends to bring back. Most of the time, anyway. Right now, the house was stifling. He'd gotten into an argument with Xion after supper and family time, screamed at Axel when he'd tried to intervene, and yelled some hurtful stuff at Isa when he'd stepped in as well, before finally fleeing to his room.isa and roxas have some things to work through, individually and together. after roxas gets in an argument with his family, the two finally get a chance.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	to pull me from myself again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lekkojot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lekkojot/gifts).



Things have been _weird_ since everyone got back. Saïx—Isa, now—was living with them—they were _living together_ , Roxas and Xion and Axel, and Isa. It was almost like they were back in the Organization, except it felt like the air was a lot more open. No more secrets. No more friends to bring back.

Most of the time, anyway.

Right now, the house was stifling. He'd gotten into an argument with Xion after supper and family time, screamed at Axel when he'd tried to intervene, and yelled some hurtful stuff at Isa when he'd stepped in as well, before finally fleeing to his room. Xion had been in tears when he'd left. Axel's eyes had been shiny, and even stoic, unruffled Isa looked taken aback.

It wasn't _fair,_ thought Roxas as he sat on his bed, hunched, as small as he could be. They were just kids. A part of his brain that had grown up faster than the rest-- or maybe was born like that, grown up-- knew that this whole thing was silly. It rewound time over and over again, showing him all the things he could have done to make it better or stopped it before it began. But that part was small and it almost made things worse. He knew how to be mature, but he couldn't make it happen. The disconnect was jarring and frightening and doing nothing but repeating, it was just being unhelpful and taunting and it made him angry.

His hand snatched up something at his side.

Since he had moved into this room, he'd kept a jar at his bedside. In it were all the shells Xion had brought him during their time in the Organization, and some new ones that she brought him, a sign of love unbounded. He liked to look at them at night as they caught the light of his lamp, glittering dully on their ridged surfaces. He brought them out, too, from time to time. Just his favorites, leaving them on his pillow—the best sleep aid, the best comfort there could ever be. Of them all, his absolute favorite was the one she said came first, a pink and yellow one in perfect condition, marking the first day he slept.

This is the shell that goes shattering against the wall as Roxas throws it in anger, an expelling of frustrated energy that sends pieces skittering unevenly across the floor. For a moment he feels a little better, in the most childish of ways, viciously satisfied having broken something.

And then in an instant his heart drops, and his head reels. He _broke it._ He broke her shell. Nausea rises in his throat and he feels awful wetness tracing down his face. Before he can stop it, he’s crying. It isn't the delicate crying of a tentative heart, but the raw, raging, shaking, scraping stuff of a broken soul, and he balls his fists in his blankets and tries not to scream.

He _broke_ it. He broke it. On the floor, its pieces catch the light of his lamp, a thousand tiny spots of dull light.

There is a soft knock on the door, and Roxas sniffles. "Go away!" He yells at the door, unsure but uncaring who stands behind it.

It opens anyway, slowly, creaking quietly. The head that peeks through could not be less welcome, tumbling blue hair and scar stretching across his face. Isa steps fully into the room and closes the door behind him.

"Don't you know what _go away_ means?" Roxas snarls, feeling misery give way to hot anger. This time, when he grabs the nearest thing, he makes sure it’s not a delicate gift—or at least, not one that was given from Xion to Roxas.

The mug he grabs bounces off Isa's chest and he catches it before it can fall to the ground, looking at it with an unreadable expression before setting it down on the dresser with a gentle thunk. It's one of Lea's, with intricate and delicate red and gold lines swirling through the ceramic. Isa had given it to him, one of a matched set from Radiant Garden in the characteristic patterns of that world (Isa had its match, colored in blue and copper), and it ended up on Roxas's nightstand after he had had a nightmare and Lea had brought him warm milk in the mug, sitting with him until he fell asleep again. Roxas's throat feels tight.

"It's good it didn't break." Isa's voice is calm, and he hates it. He wants him to _hurt_ in the worst kind of way.

"I wish it had," is all he can think to spit back. Isa seems unmoved, covering the distance to the bed in three strides and sending Roxas scrambling into a defensive position, ready to claw at the man with his nails if it comes to it. It doesn't come to it, as Isa simply sits down on the foot of the bed, three feet between them, watching him with teal-green eyes too hard to meet, let alone decipher what lies in their depths.

"Why?" Isa asks. Another person might have said it bitterly, or accusingly, angry that he wished such a cruel thing on a gift that was prized so; Isa says it evenly and non-judgmentally, simply waiting for the answer, whatever it may be.

Roxas doesn't want to answer. He huffs and turns away, but the silence stretches, Isa's eyebrow creeping up, expectant. He can't escape, and finally he gives in. "Because I think it’s stupid, and I hate it, and I hate you and how you're here in our lives."

He receives a hum in answer, thoughtful, like the man is carefully considering the careless words. "I think that's not quite what it is." He says after a moment.

"What do you know, anyway?" Roxas snaps. He does, at least right now, kind of hate Isa's presence, just as he said. When did the mug become some metaphor for his anger and frustration?

"I know hate." Isa's response is prompt. "This is not that. You threw the mug because you are frustrated and scared and it is manifesting as anger."

"I threw it because it’s a stupid mug."

Isa smiles. Roxas wants to dig his nails into his stupid, smug, Saïx face. "Alright," He says. "Why did you yell at Xion?"

"I'm just repeating what _you_ told her," Roxas answers, mouth twisting cruelly.

Isa doesn't give him the satisfaction of getting upset, not even a flicker of it across his face. Roxas is baiting him indelicately, and he doesn't even have the _decency_ to react. Instead, he hums again. "You don't believe what you said, so why did you say it?"

"Because I _felt_ like it!" He's getting tired of this, and he can feel the frustrated tears building up again, the clawing and tightening of his heart. Seeing Isa's level gaze, settled on the pieces of seashell on the floor-- it ignites the spark of rage into an inferno, and he lunges for Isa, beating at his chest and shoulders with his fists.

Isa, damn him, appears completely unbothered, and allows him to vent his anger, violently, with all the strength he possessed. He wishes he could _hurt_ him, that he could understand the hurt that Roxas's heart was brimming with. He screams, clawing at the thick shirt the man is wearing.

"Why are you _here?_ Just come to rub it in?" He wants to say more, something pointed, something to press all the right buttons, but he can't think over the bubbling anger and hate and something else, something smaller and infinitely more sad and fearful, hiding below the surface. "I hate you," He yells. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." Again and again he spits evidence of his rage, as he curls his fingers into Isa's chest and drops his head onto the solid flesh there, from yelling to crying to soft whimpers, soaking the soft fabric with tears.

A cool hand rests on his back, holding him far gentler than he ever could have thought this man could. He wants to be mad, he wants to hate that he’s trying to offer, finally, some sort of vague comfort, he wants to be furious that he’s holding him so gently, like as if he _cares_. But he can’t find it in himself to be, can’t find it in himself to believe truly that Isa _doesn’t_ care. To think it makes his stomach twist, sour. Even if it’s just for Axel’s sake (and he can’t really believe that that’s it, either), he came in this room when he had no obligation to, allowed Roxas to scream at him and hit him, and still he’s put a steady hand on his back.

If he wasn’t so tired, that might send him into a fresh wave of tears.

"I didn't mean to yell at her," Roxas confesses in a voice little more than a whisper, exhausted and sad, now that the tide of anger has receded. He looks up at Isa with watery eyes, finding in green depths a gentle understanding. It spurs him to continue, reassured he is, in fact, safe in this company. "It just was all too much. I wish we were normal kids. I wish all of this was normal."  
  
Isa sighs and draws the teen closer, rubbing his back and running his hand over his hair. "I know," He answers. No false words of reassurance would come from this quarter, no. No feigned, _you are normal_ that he might expect from Axel, who still labored under that sort of belief, and no pressure to pretend the family they'd haphazardly built was normal either, like Xion might insist upon. He just says, _I know_ , and he waits for Roxas.

“I’m sorry I yelled at her and Axel. And you.” His voice is hardly above a whisper, and he looks back down, unable to meet his eyes as he says this. He hates apologizing, it always makes him feel weak. Like as if he couldn’t do it right the first time, couldn’t exist right the first time. But the four of them collectively have agreed to acknowledge and apologize for anything they do deliberately wrong, and Roxas’s outburst certainly counts.

He receives in response, though, nothing more than a hum. The frustration is building again, but not sparking into anger, just settling into a yawning pit of tired acceptance in his stomach, as Roxas pulls away and tucks his knees up to his chest.

“Why can't we be normal?” He asks, plaintive, like a child. He hates how childish the frustration makes him feel, but Isa looks at him, silent, and the feeling settles down. Maybe no one in this house has an answer for that question. That doesn't make him feel _better_ , but it doesn't make him feel worse, either, just a little guilty. For a long minute, he's quiet, and he allows Isa to gently move his legs down and pull the covers over him.

“Isa?” He ventures as Isa is fixing the sheets, smoothing them around the boy's body. His hands, hidden at his sides, clutch in his sleep pants.

“Yes?”

“Do they—are they going to hate me?”

The man pauses, and as his words linger in the air, Roxas almost decides that he doesn't want to know the answer. Xion and Axel are his best friends, and the thought of losing them to something as stupid as his own misguided anger makes him want to be sick.

Then Isa smiles, just for a moment, and says: “No, Roxas. They do not hate you, they never would.”

Something about his tone is honest, the kind of surety of experience, and Roxas's hands loosen. Isa smooths his hand over the sheets one last time and stands to leave, turning the light off as he does.

The light from the hallway as he opens the door silhouettes him. Roxas nearly sits up. He wants to say one last thing, before he leaves, before the moment is broken—

“’Night, Isa.”

The words have more beneath them that Roxas could never say. From the faintest hint of a smile he can see, Isa understands.

“Goodnight, Roxas.”

The boy settles back into the pillows. Things are weird, since they reformed, but they've always been weird, and maybe it’s not such a bad thing to not be normal. If none of his family are normal, then maybe he can live with not being normal, either.

Lea is sitting on the couch when Isa returns to him, looking less shell shocked than he had earlier. Still, his eyes are a little puffy, and Isa goes to him and lets him press, almost instinctively, into his side, wrapping an arm around him and tangling his fingers into red spikes. Lea must be feeling a little better, because he takes advantage of their closeness to put his feet up in Isa's lap, and Isa is feeling just sympathetic enough to allow it.

“How is he?” Lea asks, voice softer than Isa is used to hearing, and a little bit rougher.

Isa's still smiling, just barely. “Better,” He answers. “He is getting some rest now.”

“That’s good.” Lea's fingers knead into Isa's side and chest, spots of warmth radiating out. Isa catches one of his hands and raises it to his lips. “Xion’s doing better, too.”

He must have gone to see her. Isa's smile settles on his face. “Good.”

Lea tugs his hand free from Isa's grip and gently holds his chin, turning it towards him. Their eyes meet—green and teal. “How are _you_?”

The warmth from the fingers still curled in his side is spreading through his body. “I'm alright,” Isa answers after a moment, and even with everything that had happened, even with the words he'd had yelled at him before, the vitriol that the boy in the other room had displayed, he knows that his answer is true.

They may not be normal, but they're alright.

**Author's Note:**

> (claps my hands together) roxas and isa deserve to talk! let them talk!! i have so many thoughts about isa and izzy has a bunch of thoughts about roxas and we put our heads together and... we have had so many thoughts between the two of us. i couldn't possibly post all of it here, but if you are interested, i'm on twitter @glaceydiviner if you want to talk about isa and the sea salts and kh in general!
> 
> lyrics from dear fellow traveller - sea wolf. if you're looking for a good song to sum up roxas and isa's post kh3 relationship, at least imo, this is it


End file.
